February 28, 2007

It’s somewhat fitting that my father died in the month of March. March is a very Fredian verb. He lived his life with a militaristic level of discipline, and forward motion was definitely his thing. (As opposed to, say, navel gazing, or labyrthine wandering.)

This time last year he was here, sick as a dog, full of myeloma and vincristine. His kidneys were secretly, silently failing.

Despite the illness, we talked just about daily on the phone.

He was invested in my success, my happiness, my life. Had I registered my truck yet? How’s the dog? What was the noise level like at my new apartment?

Let me just say: A parent who worries aloud from their deathbed about the state of their offspring’s car registration is a good parent.

I want to learn CSS. It was one of the reasons I decided to start blogging.

So I’m writing the code for this site myself. And I am a beginner. Therefore, the layout for this site is pretty lame. I don’t know how to nest pictures the way I want, or create tables or titles. I’ll learn it, and the site will improve, but, for the time being? Fugly.

I just wanted you all to know that I know that this site looks like it was coded back in 1992.

February 26, 2007

That’s the best dog in the whole world right there. I know a lot of people think they have the best dog in the whole world, and I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings, but…… those people are wrong. There can only be one best dog, and it’s Fluppy. She has a halo, but she’s too modest to wear it.

She’s a Shepow. That’s a dog that’s 1/2 Australian Shepard, 1/2 Chow.

Oh wait, I just made that word up. She’s a mutt. I may be dipping my toes into the Waters of Controversy here, but damn! the whole Schnoodle, Labradoodle, Chuweenie thing just makes me think that those of us lucky enough to be born into the 1st world have WAAY too much time on our hands.

Let me clarify: the purchase of bred-for-sale dogs over mutts has always irritated me, and the Designer-Mixed-Breed thing, as the newest manifestation of Dog Eugenics, is freshly irratating.

Let me clarify further. I understand the impulse to go with a purebred, because it is important to be extremely careful about controlling for personality type when getting a dog.

You will want to like this creature whose poop you will be picking up for the next 10 – 20 years.

Back in my dogwalking days, I walked for at least 5 or six apartment-dwelling Jack Russell Terriers who were purchased because their owners liked Eddie, the dog from Fraizer. Guess what? Jack Russells are herding dogs. You might as well invite a tornado with a high IQ to come and live in your 600 square foot Manhattan apartment. Breed does matter.

Having said that – it’s my firm belief that most people, in most cases, and as a former dogwalker to the stars I have a right to an opinion on this, can find a mutt with the right personality for them, with some guidance and help from the fine people at the pound.

In other words, you do not have to buy a purebred dog to know what kind of dog you’re getting, and if you still really, really want a stupid fancy name for your dog then just make one up like I did, but you’ll have actually saved a dog’s life, so get over yourself already and just go to the pound.

February 22, 2007

31) When I was in college I was tested for ADD. One section of the test required me to sit in front of a computer screen that flashed random letters. My job, as the test taker, was to hit the space bar whenever the letter X came up.

32) I was determined to do a good job. I was not going to miss one X.

33) And I didn’t. Because I worked myself into a reactive frenzy and hit the space bar every time a letter flashed up no matter which fucking letter it was. I saw the letter, my fingers pounced for the space bar, and then I thought “Q! Doh!”

34) It was the most explicit demonstration of the faulty wiring in my brain I have ever had. And therefore very useful.

35) The medical diagnosis was impulsivity.

36) I know, I was suprised that it was a medical diagnosis too.

37) In an ironic twist of fate, my father was, hands down, without a doubt, the least impulsive person in the history of all time.

38) I’m serious. Imagine a tortoise raising a hummingbird. That was us.

39) There is nothing I am more grateful for than the relationship I had with my Dad in the last years of his life. He died last year – he had multiple myeloma.

February 20, 2007

My friend Patrick and I came up with the above apothegm, back in the long-ago time when we lived in San Francisco.

Now he lives in DC and I live in Austin, and I haven’t come up with a decent apothegm in years.

I wanted to post yesterday, but I was too busy recovering from a weekend away. The kind of weekend that features wine, fancy chocolates, steak, homemade pasta, walks in the woods, and naps. A primere weekend experience.

Seriously. I didn’t even step in cow shit once.

I’m sure you’ve had one or two of these in your lifetime. I’d love to hear about them. And then, after I hear about them? I am going to go live them. Because that’s the kind of person I am.

February 15, 2007

11) I think Fight Club is the most overrated movie ever made. It hurts me to remember it. Holy shit, do I ever hate that movie.

12) Other popular movies I hate include American Beauty, Napoleon Dynamite, and Amelie. Someone has to hate them, and that person is me.

13) Con Air, on the other hand, is one of the most underrated movies ever made. I’m pretty sure I like Con Air more than anyone else in the whole world. Maybe I should start a fan club?

14) If I started a fan club, I would name it the Con Air Poesers, because the movie’s hero is Cameron Poe. Get it? Poesers?

15) The first order of business would be coming up with a better name.

16) I am always cold. Always. I didn’t used to be, but around age 25 I went through some sort of horrific internal chemical hormonal shift. One day I woke up cold, and I have been cold ever since. I am actually shivering right now, as I type this.

17) I don’t like the taste of water. I think this might be a sign of poor character, so sometimes I catch myself pretending to like water, when I’m around superhydrated types of people.

18) Pretending to like water so that people will like you is definitely a sign of poor character.

19) My fingers and toes are so long that one time a doctor – a real, actual ER doctor with extensive medical training – thought I had Abraham Lincoln disease. I have had a complex about this ever since and regularly try on shoes from high school to make sure they still fit.

20) The picture I am using for my profile was painted by my friend Heyd Fontenot, who gave me the compliment of my life when he asked me to pose for him. You can see just as much of his loveliness in it as you can me.

February 14, 2007

This morning, I woke up early, just like I do every day. And then I rolled over and began poking Cristian in the ribs, which is what I always do, every morning, ever since he got here.

It’s just such a nice surprise to see him there, and poking is the only way I can really express my true feelings about it.

Cristian is so dedicated to our special morning routine that he can participate without even waking up. I start in on the poking, and he makes his wincy I’m-getting-poked-and-it’s-not-even-8-am-yet face that he makes every morning, just for me. It’s a really, really good face. It’s a shame I’m the only one who gets to see it. He looks a little bit like a fish that has come up to the surface of the tank for some fish food, if you can imagine that.

—

Before I met Cristian, I thought there were lessons I needed to learn, things I needed to change within myself, in order to be in a happy, healthy, loving relationship. I worried that I might not ever strike the balance right, that maybe I just didn’t have the self-discipline and dedication necessary to keep loving the same person year after year. That love wouldn’t – couldn’t – come until I turned myself into the right kind of person. It’s a logic a lot of people subscribe to, I think, and it’s connected to one of the Great American Myths – that, with enough effort, we can control every single aspect of our lives.

—

Cristian actually had to get up and go to work early this morning, which is not the norm, and which always adds an unwanted layer of pathos to the poking ritual. He staggered and lurched up from the bed into the closet, only to announce that he had left his catering uniform at his apartment.

Well, shit, I said. I’ll just drive you over there on my way to work.

And so off we went to his apartment, where he staggered and lurched about his many, many boxes, only to discover – whoops! – that his uniform was not, in actuality, at his apartment, but had been at my own apartment the entire time.

Well, shit, I said. I’ll just drive you back to my apartment. What can you do?

And so back we went to my apartment, where Cristian staggered and lurched about for only a few moments before finally realizing – Oh, Geez! – that his uniform was, in actual, actual actuality, at his apartment, in his hamper.

I managed to whine his name at him only once before loading his poor, tired body back into my car for a final trip to his house, where said uniform was located and donned, to fine and handsome effect.

—

This is what love, sans self improvement, looks like in my life. There are still piles of laundry on the carpet, moldy vegetables in the fridge. Mornings are haphazard, evenings long and lazy. I have done nothing to deserve my great good luck.

I used to believe that I could completely control my life. And I believed that I had to have that control if I wanted to love and be loved completely, successfully, with all of my heart.

Cristian? Listen carefully, because this is the only time I am ever going to say this.

February 13, 2007

I met Amanda Marcotte at a party in Austin, well over a year ago now. She writes over at Pandagon, one of my favorite political blogs. Anyway, I met her at this party, and I was enjoying bantering with her, and then I found out who she was, got totally star struck, dorked out, and left without getting her contact information.

I kept reading Pandagon, though, thinking maybe we’d run into each other again. I had a second opportunity to kick myself around for not befriending her when I found out she was moving to Chapel Hill, NC, to blog for the Edwards campaign.

Fast forward to today, when I realized that she is one of the two Edwards bloggers whose lives have been completely upended due to their criticisms of the Catholic Church’s take on birth control and abortion. She resigned today. You can read more about it here, if you’re not already familiar with the brouhaha.

Of course, what Amanda’s experiencing is not a unique or unusual event. Strong women have been drug through the dirt since time immemorial. We are expected to be polite, hobble our voices, and make nice. We are punished when we don’t.

Currently, horrible, horrible things are being said about this funny, smart woman. And here I sit, feeling connected, feeling protective. Amanda was friendly to me at a time when I was new in town and desperate for kindness. She made me a kickass martini. Her writing is angry and brave and unapologetic.

She’s too good for this shit, is the bottom line.

And there’s another, more fundamental reason I feel connected to her. People – specifically women – like Amanda are the reason that abortion and birth control are legal today. And for those of us who have sex with men, access to birth control and abortion gives us the ability to control our own lives, nothing less.